Well before your official launch, you need to begin getting people signed up to your email list. Why email? We’re starting with email because it’s by far the best way to keep people engaged and convert them into customers.

It’s so much more powerful to be able to email people directly with the announcement than to post it on social media, where many of your followers will miss it among all the other noise.

OPTIMIZE YOUR WEBSITE FOR SIGNUPS

Even if all you have is a basic “Coming Soon” page, you can use it to generate interest in your launch and entice people to sign up. It’s about giving just the right amount of information to grab people’s attention, but leaving an element of mystery to pique their curiosity.

Also consider offering a special bonus for early subscribers. Have a look through the some ideas on how to set up a popular launch page. Don’t forget to test your page using A/B split testing, to find out which configuration gets the most signups.

START TO COMMUNICATE REGULARLY

Many people focus on getting signups, and forget about engaging their audience immediately. You don’t want your first email to be about your launch; the danger is that if it’s been weeks or months since they signed up, people will have forgotten who you are and why they were interested. They may even have forgotten that they signed up at all, and treat your email as spam—not a good way to start a relationship.

So send out emails regularly, and keep offering people something useful with each message. That way, they’ll stay signed up, and will be primed to respond positively to your official launch.

USE SOCIAL MEDIA

The first step, obviously, is to set up profiles on the major sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and begin engaging in conversations both with potential customers and with influencers.

But also think more broadly. Personal blogs were the original social media, and many of them still have large and devoted followings.

Think about integrating social media with your email marketing too.

If you want to get attention, giving away something valuable like an iPad often works well too. If you can run popular contests, or create fun and shareable video content, then you’ve got a great chance of garnering followers before launch. Even people who don’t sign up will at least have been exposed to your company, giving you some level of name recognition.

DON’T FORGET TRADITIONAL MEDIA

If you think print is dead and it’s all about social media now, think again.

An article in a popular publication, or a spot on the TV news, can have a huge impact on a startup’s growth. Not only does it get you instant attention from thousands of people, but also it gives you that precious commodity in the world of startups: credibility. Long after the article has come out, you’ll be able to impress potential customers by saying “As seen in The New York Times,” or wherever you were mentioned. Even with smaller publications, media mentions count for a lot.

PLAN THE LAUNCH EVENT

Of course, a great way to get attention is with your actual launch event. This gives journalists a news hook, provides people on social media with images and videos to share, and if you’re creative or have a great story to tell, it can create a big splash.

LAUNCH

If you’ve prepared well, then the launch itself should be a success. You’ve got a base of eager users on your email list and on social media, and have already been communicating with them and feeding them sneak previews of your product. And a well-organized event, either at a major conference or on your own turf, has given you some extra buzz.

Here are the some of the most ridiculous startup ideas that eventually became successful:

Facebook

The world needs yet another Myspace or Friendster, except several years late. We’ll only open it up to a few thousand overworked, anti-social Ivy Leaguers. Everyone else will then join since Harvard students are so cool.

iOS

The iOS is a brand new operating system that doesn’t run a single one of the millions of applications that have been developed for Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. Only Apple can build apps for it. It won’t have cut and paste.

LinkedIn

This is a professional social network, aimed at busy 30-and-40-somethings who will use it once every 5 years when they go job searching.

Amazon

They sell books online, even though users are still scared to use credit cards on the web. Their shipping costs will eat up any money they save. They’ll do it for the convenience, even though they have to wait a week for the book.

Virgin Atlantic

Airlines are cool. Let’s start one. How hard could it be? We’ll differentiate with a funny safety video and by not being jerks.

Craigslist

It will be ugly and it will be free.

Google

We are building the world’s 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as commoditized money-losers. We’ll strip out all of the ad-supported news and portal features so you won’t be distracted from using the free search stuff.

Tesla

Instead of just building batteries and selling them to Detroit, we are going to build our own cars from scratch plus own the distribution network. During a recession and a cleantech backlash.

SpaceX

If NASA can do it, so can we! It ain’t rocket science.

Twitter

It is like email, SMS or RSS. Except it does a lot less. It will be used mostly by geeks at first, followed by Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen.

Paperless Post

We are like Evite, except you pay us. All of your friends will know that you are an idiot.

Instagram

Filters! That’s right, we got filters!

PayPal

People will use their insecure AOL and Yahoo email addresses to pay each other real money, backed by a non-bank with a cute name run by 20-somethings.

Mint

Give us all of your bank, brokerage, and credit card information. We’ll give it back to you with nice fonts. To make you feel richer, we’ll make them green.

Dropbox

We are going to build a file sharing and syncing solution when the market has a dozen of them that no one uses, supported by big companies like Microsoft. It will only do one thing well, and you’ll have to move all of your content to use it.

Palantir

We’ll build arcane analytics software, put the company in California, hire a bunch of new college grad engineers, many of them immigrants, hire no sales reps, and close giant deals with D.C.-based defense and intelligence agencies!

GitHub

Software engineers will pay monthly fees for the rest of their lives in order to create free software out of other free software!

Firefox

We are going to build a better web browser, even though 90 percent of the world’s computers already have a free one built in. One guy will do most of the work.

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